Raising Digital Awareness

I believe people come to this place due to some idea that I'm an idea machine, that I always have the right answer and that my way is inherently superior. If you believe that, stop. You need to be able to create your own understanding of the world around you. However, there's nothing wrong with learning from others and applying these improvements to your life, we call that learning. I learn new things pretty often, but I don't share them, it isn't my job to educate you. I feel that's a job to be undertaken by the individual, and not a shared experience. I do realize that's not how the 'internet age' works, but not everything sticks to everybody. I could begin a renewed start to share some interesting things with the world, but it's almost so easy a caveman can do it.

I would subscribe to reddit.com, the entire point of Reddit is to re-post the best stuff. And, best of all, it has "subreddits" that allow you to get information on one specific topic, discuss with similarly interested people, and share your own material. It's like a news site, only if you stripped everything away and rebuilt around what people actually want. It's everything you could need in personal interaction and information seeking.

Also, you could just as easily find in depth videos on youtube.com detailing everything from string theory to why the sky is blue. People have almost everything we know about everything at their fingertips, yet they don't use it. It's less of a "school is failing us" and more of a "school isn't preparing us". When's the last time a teacher asked you use YouTube to answer a question on your homework? Or told you to Google your math homework to get the correct answer. Because what teaches us hasn't advanced, we cannot expect our students [across the board] to advance.

We'll always need some sort of interaction, but people won't always have our answers. The college professor won't have all the answers forever, and neither will the scientists or the geniuses. Knowledge will be able to transport itself around the world faster than we can learn it. The trick is to let us learn from our past to better prepare for the future.

Just a thought. A pretty good one.

This is Only a Test

What could it be? What should it ask? What should you study to prepare? Who administers and who participates?

These are just a few more questions, in an infinite line of questions, that I seek today to expound upon. What constitutes a test, and why might we fear them? For one, they can limit, but they can also prove. They can embarrass or they can extol. They make us feel things, and it's just a test remember.

These tests practice what we know, and school us on what is important. But what if those are arbitrary? What if the knowledge is useless and the importance fallacy? Who creates these constructs of what should and what shouldn't be? This is where freedom steps in again [to save the day].

Quick think of a test, any test. What did you think of? I honestly thought of a test of some sort of drill or
plan, a fire escape plan. You may have thought of a bubble test (given your probable age) or a Scantron. Others, older, may think of a demonstration of their abilities, their experience placed in the hands of a grade. Tests are important, or unimportant, for many reasons. They show others you're qualified or show how fast you can make little circles with graphite and wooden sticks. They represent the desire to measure, and in society, they show a need for scales. To be able to discern between the "have's" and the "have-not's".

Like I said, they can be official, important, necessary, or trivial, boring, repetitive. Some people are incredibly good at them, making them just a matter of answering a question or matching some letters. To others, panic can set it, they're afraid, afraid if what a single test can show. The unknown of their ability to remember information all at once in a single sitting. Helpful or not, not everybody is effected by tests. Pass or fail, they vary in severity and in difficulty. It's important to use the right test lest you waste your time. I like to think of my test as a sort of ability exercise. Can I create freely without needing to barrow? To refer? To repeat? What works and what doesn't? What do I and others respond to, and how can I make those responses change? My test is more of a conversation, pick anything, everything is free game.

Is There an Expert in the House?

I would like to say that, only narrowing the scope of one who investigates freedom, will only cause to segregate what we consider research and what we consider destructive. It's counter intuitive to create arbitrary lines of which we shouldn't cross, in the pursuit of what we may never fully understand. It's noo Cosmos, but it's a sort of mystery that surrounds the thoughts we have and what we care to share with the world, or what we hear, or do.

Who's to say we're not all experts? With personal experience and collective knowledge, what can't we seek to explore? Where do we stop? Is there an end? All questions we should ask, but the answers we may not find, yet. It's everyone's duty to take up arms against normalcy, to fight the stagnant and the restricting. We've been doing it long enough to bear the gifts it gives us and the words we use today. "Innovation", in our tech geared culture, sounds the most familiar. The ultimate freedom sought by anyone with tools and a dream. We may think our freedom is over, that it's the end of the personal. But it is our choice to accept or reject these assumptions. That is why; I believe that anyone and everyone can be an expert. I feel that anyone can contribute, that holding some back would be the very thing we sought to remove.

It may be more difficult, yes, more complex, more varied, but more knowledgeable, more educational, more agile. If you look to explore what we have and create what is next, you must know the ins and outs, or at least have somewhere to go to get them. Not only I, but we can be those people, wiling and able to share in what we know and what we seek. Because, we aren't the only ones, not today, not tomorrow. Not everyone enjoys what we have, ans us them, but we can collectively shape the world in which we live, for a better life for all.

I, Entrepreneur

Contrary to some other popular words I could use to describe Hitler, I do believe he could be described as an entrepreneur. He decided that he was going to do some thing that few had tried to do before. Maybe it was wrong, a "crime against humanity" but that's a discussion for another time. My point is, he did something that few had tried before, and he wanted to do it bigger and better than ever thought possible. People may do things for the wrong reasons, but no one would remember a mediocre dictator bent on world domination.

My plans aren't anything as big, nor what I would consider myself an entrepreneur. I do plan on being the best I can be, but not at anything new. There's no limitations on ability, but it isn't my intention to specialize on a new field. Firefighting isn't exactly a "forward thinking business". There's no desire to innovate or create new things, its a profession based on personal values and public service.

And just because you're an expert, you aren't an entrepreneur. Some people just like being a cog in the machine, and they may be the best cog in the world. Ambition is not measured in new ideas, its measured by how hard you work in everything you do.

Ten Questions

Hey Adolph Hitler, what's up?

- You seemed like a busy guy back in the day, how did you handle all of your important duties to ensure an efficient Third Reich?
- Why create an "inferior" group of population in your country? Why not try and use the best of what you had, instead of trying to eliminate a race?
- How does one go about branding the Nazi party with the use of the swastika? How did the Indians feel?
- I understand you wrote a book while in prison because of your early political career. What in the book has come true and what do you wish had?
- It did seem like a good idea to team up with Japan, Italy and the USSR, but why double cross Stalin? He was such a nice guy.
- I hear you were a painter at an early age, why did you give up a life of art?
- Did you ever imagine that Japan and China would eventually completely switch political views?
- What ever happened to that underground tunnel to Britain? We may be able to use that later...
- Those Hitler Youths look awfully like Boy Scouts, did you take any hints on the uniform?
- And finally, are you sorry for ruining a mustache?

If your confused, angry, sad, or otherwise lost: Sarcasm.

Hey There!

I saw you checking out my blog, and wanted to mention...

                     

The music you listen to is trash.

Go listen to some quality music.

You're welcome.

Today's Topic

CNN: Putin: Russia has no plans to annex Crimea
If you have ears, you've (hopefully) heard about yet another reason to fear that World War III is upon us. Throughout the last few months, we've heard more about Ukraine than we probably ever have. And that's pretty typical of foreign conflicts. Here, in the US, we don't really care until it could upset our foreign interests. In this case, we've chosen to oppose Russia again, in, what could become, a familiar Cold War proxy war. As with every conflict since we called for an end to war in the Middle East, we've taken a side and gotten involved in yet another foreign disturbance instead of letting countries solve their own domestic problems.

I wonder how long it will take the drones to get over there...

Super 5

Here are five experts that I would like to find out more information on. I feel they have a very close relationship with freedom. Good or bad.

- Barack Obama
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Gahndi
- Adolph Hitler
- Joseph Stalin

Now, most of these people are deceased. However, much other their lives are documented for later study, such as in my case. If you're interested, these are the people to look to.